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So Russia may be off the books, but on the upside, I learned more about Schengen and Bilateral countries when talking to Peter my ‘visa guy’. His first question to me was “So why are you doing it this way? Logically you’d do Western Europe first, in fact, with a New Zealand passport you can stay in Europe for 4.5 years without hassle.” My response sounded weird, as it sounds weird every time I say it “Umm, Latvia has really good internet and low cost of living.”
Peter’s response “Ah, right, ok. Anyway…”read more

Russia is right there… just there, over the line and yet we can’t go, all because of timing. I’m more than a little annoyed, but what can you do? St Petersburg is 4.5 hours away from Tallin, Estonia (368.8 km) but because of the way we chose to travel it means we can’t get there.read more

“What are you going to do when you get back?”

HaHaHa, that’s a joke question right?! I can barely keep the week straight, let alone to plan that far in advance. I know people are anxious to understand our plans, but we don’t know. All we know so far is that we move out of Auckland in April, with the kids heading to Blenheim a couple of days before us. We’re going to Blenheim to help with this mind shift (and childcare while we work – thanks Mum) then we head to the US for a couple of weeks. All the US plans we have at this point are to continue the schooling and working routine we have thought about but won’t know how it really works until we try it. After the US, we fly to Norway for a few days (this stop is for Alpha since she loves Roald Dahl ‘The Witches‘), then on to our first major stop Latvia, for the month of June. After that, we go to Estonia for the month of July. After Estonia who knows?! I really want to go to St Petersberg (since it’s just over the border from Estonia), but we have no clue for the rest of it. It’s been a mission to get this far, and I have to start working on Russian visas soon, which we might have to do in Latvia actually. There are so many countries we want to see and we have to manage the Schengen countries with non-Schengen countries. So it’ll be 3 months in and 3 months out. Lennox really wants to go to Bulgaria (because of ‘Great Uncle Bulgaria’ from the Wombles), and wow, yeah the list of countries that Nat and I have is long, really long, and we know we can’t see them all, so we’re going to let things unfold a little.read more

(Warning a bit of a rant ahead.)

Following on from what I mentioned last time is the ‘reality’. Reality does kind of suck. It’s fun dreaming about adventures, imagining what it could be like, but when you actually have to do the hard slog to get from dream to reality…. well it’s bloody hard. Mostly emotionally. I had no idea that getting rid of stuff would take its toll. For most of us (me included). Stuff = Security.read more

What are we doing?

Well, we’re traveling, we’re taking the kids out of school, we’re building the business, and we’re leaving for an extended undetermined amount of time. No more than two years though. It seems, however, that most people think we’ll fall in love with a country and stay there. HaHaHa!! The thought is very unappealing right now, but I’m not dumb enough to say ‘it’ll never happen’, but really, we have to pay taxes in two countries as it is, and the paperwork… oh the paperwork with that alone is enough to make me cry. So the thought of dealing with a third country…. nope, not likely.read more